European Supermarket Cashiers Q?
 

Every since the advent of supermarkets and hypermarches in Europe i've always seen check-out cashiers sitting down in swivel chairs and not standing - everywhere in Europe

Yet in the U.S. cashiers inevitably are made to stand all day.

Why? Are they more efficient?

Seems that American cashiers would rather sit all day then stand on their feet - esp older ones, etc.

Any reason American cashiers don't sit down? Just curious - have you ever seen a store in U.S. where they do

They are opening a new Aldi is my hometown and perhaps there they sit?

Yes in the Aldi stores here they do sit, but as you said they tend to stand in all others. Odd.

I wondered the same thing when I was in Paris and Rome. Those cashiers don't know how lucky they have it. ;)

I spent six loooong years on my feet working at Publix when I was in high school and college (way back in the 80s). There was no way in heck you were allowed to sit down back then, though I do notice that they now allow pregnant cashiers to sit.

I swear my feet still ache sometimes from standing all those long hours.

I wonder why?

Is it to bring their eye level up with their customers - but what advantage does that give the store. OK, the 'higher' person normally has an advantage with dominance, but I can't see the relevance. It's not like we dominate our cashiers into charging us less or anything...

Workplace protection laws.

>It's not like we dominate our cashiers into charging us less or anything...<

That made me LOL.

I don't know about the US but in Europe we are governed by European Health & Safety Law. The Manual Handling and Display Screen Equipment laws require an Ergonomic Risk Assessment. Operators must have an adjustable chair with back support and either a rail or foot rest to insure that the feet don't dangle. The chair should be adjusted to enable the operator to work in a neutral position.

Which leaves me mystified why our cashiers are not afforded the same protections

many are in unions that seemingly would have wanted it - doesn't standing for hours help make vericose veins, etc.

Or do our cashiers really want to stand. Guess i may have to ask some.

I feel kind of like George Constanza in one episode when he saw a store guard made to stand by the entrance and finally convinced him to sit in a chair - well the guard fell asleep but don't think cashiers would or could

I used to be a checker for 10 years in a high volume store. Part of the reason we stand probably is due to a productivity expectation. We were expected to be fast and accurate checkers. You can fling the groceries a lot faster if your standing and pulling and pushing the groceries through. Another possible reason is that even though we had baggers, they'd often be doing a price check or doing a clean up. In other words, I had to bag at least half of my orders. You can bag faster by standing. It was all about the friendliness, speed and accuracy.

They are low-ranking employees, and should know their place. Give them seats, and problems will ensue. They will expect other privileges, and might even expect to be treated with respect. You can't have that.

Padraig, did you used to be the manager at the store I worked in during my high school years?

If not, you sound just like him. ;)

Every piece of research we evber did showed that America's bizarre treatment of their checkout staff (we had supermarkets in both North America and Europe) went with substantially lower productivity.

Our US management claimed customers expected staff to stand. The numbers weren't totally comparable, since the silly American habit of getting checkout staff to fill the shoppers' bags was part of the reason US operators were so slow.

We never really convinced ourselves there WAS any customer demand in the US for ill-treated staff. The scandalous standard of employee facilites generally in our US stores made us believe management over there just felt better kicking people around - which was why their performance in everything (cost control, sales densities, net profit) was so mediocre.

But, whatever the cause, the facts do seem to be that the US system leads to inefficient staff and slower service.

There are plenty of supermarkets like in Britain where the sitting cashier also stuffs things in plastic bags at least as efficiently as the teen-age baggers most stores here employ

And now at the Meijer chain they have eliminated baggers and the (standing) cashier does it all at once - a simple re-arranging of the layout

I really wonder if American clerks think they should stand - if why not then why do they, literally, stand for that type of tiring treatment???

>if why not then why do they, literally, stand for that type of tiring treatment???

Because it has always been this way.

I've seen checkers standing at several Brussels supermarkets, for example, the Colruyt chain.

Moreover, when it comes to service, I've yet to see a British supermarket offer service equal to, let alone better and more efficient, than at Wegman's in the U.S.

<check-out clerks should sit

I guess you could give the supermarket clerks who wanted to stand for the exercise value of it, the choice of NOT using a chair or stool. ...
www.whynot.net/ideas/1793>

<i>the US system leads to inefficient staff and slower service. </i>

That has not been my experience.

In my US market checkout was fast and friendly and new aisles opened up as needed and there was an express lane for small orders.

In my Swiss market, lines are long and slow, and you wait in the same line even if you just have one item. Sometimes you have to wait for your order to be rung up while the customer ahead of you very slowly packs their own groceries.

Bet it would really make you cringe to know that in the US my produce was weighed at checkout and after my groceries were perfectly packed in free bags, help to my car was also offered. I declined, but lots of seniors, or those with little children often got this nice service.

Things are not as dire in the USA as you may believe.

gruezi

&quot;Free&quot; bags? The price of the bags is not factored into the grocery prices?

Jack - when Carrefour recently eliminated all FREE plastic bags did they in turn lower their prices?

may well have and would have been a publicity stunt if so IMO

and perhaps they even turn a profit on selling those re-usable bags?

Gruezi - the point is not overall efficiency here but would cashiers been as efficient if they were sitting down - the reasons you give for perhaps overall inefficiency for example waiting for customer ahead of you to finish packing their own bags i have noticed in Europe as well

but i think it has nothing to do with sitting or standing cashiers

And in Aldi type markets cashiers do NOT wait until someone ahead is finished packing up.

Reading suggestion from the Washington Post:

http://tinyurl.com/3p38hw

gruezi wrote: &quot;Things are not as dire in the USA as you may believe.&quot;

But it seems they are for checkout operators. I can't imagine what it must be like to stand in one place for the length of a working day.

I wouldn't stand for it.

Padraig - are you suggesting a 'sit down strike'?

I am amazed that some people want their cashiers to stand up just so that they personally get what they think is faster service.

No, I guess I'm not amazed at all.

I just hope they spend all their time in purgatory as American cashiers.

Yes, all the standing leads to vericose veins and other problems. Yes, most cashiers would probably rather sit. No, they don't have much influence over their working conditions, even those in unions.

Cashiers are lucky to get their scheduled breaks though - or the opportunity to leave the register to use the bathroom.

Just to clarify...

My point wasn't about whether cashiers should sit or not. I do a job where I'm on my feet for hours at a time so they have my sincere empathy. My point was I don't think service is inefficient.

If some efficiency were lost in the spirit of better working conditions, I'm all for it.

(Actually, I have seen cashiers with chairs in some stores.)

gruezi

The average checkout operator handled about 25% more items per hour in our European stores than in our North American ones. Worse, no senior North American manager had ever done this analysis. They just assumed the American Way was best because they'd never been taught - at school or in business - to think for themselves or make decisions based on hard data.

This isn't a universal North American characteristic: I've worked in some businesses where the Americans were as disciplined and rigorous in their processes as their overseas counterparts.

But it's been true of every retail business I've ever been involved in running. In one extraordinary example, the retail business concerned was part of one of the the largest foreign-owned corporations in the US. Many US managers in the group ran rings round their European opposite numbers: but the US retailers were, by light years, worse trained, less inventive and showed worse results than in any other country in the world. Even the French were more professional.

In all the grocery stores where I shop (Switzerland), they are all sitting. They've got it easier than me.

I have to put my groceries on the conveyer belt, find my money and cards to pay and then put all those groceries back into the bags. It can be workout.

I enjoy shopping at our local COOP because they have a scanner to scan in the prices as I put things into the cart. No more unpacking and repacking.

Clothing and department store cashiers still stand.

Though i've seen some U-Scan automatic check outs in Europe, esp in U.K. not the number here

some supermarkets now have about half their check-outs self-operated U-Scans where you do everything yourself

software is being developed so that soon i guess your whole cart will be scanned automatically so maybe supermarket clerks will be made redundant and put out of their misery - yet the U Scan supervisor does stand for some reason - perhaps because they can hop quicker to help someone work something out?

I just spoke to a U-Scan cashier (cashiers are required for payment and random checks) the other day and she said it's the most boring job in the world. She'd rather be a traditional cashier because that's where the action is.

I worked part of my way through college as a cashier. This of course was back in the days of the dinosaur when the cashier had to take the items out of the cart, manually ring up the item and bag it. This couldn't be done sitting down, and the register configuration was so that the cart would be next to the cashier instead of on the other side of the counter near the customer. During slow times I was expected to restock the cigarette cases, clean up around the registers, separate items for restocking, and price nearby merchandise. (OMG I'm really dating myself because I used to use a price gun with stickers and everything!hee).

And I had to stand on a hard floor. On an uphill slant. Both ways.

And I counted back change, instead of handing it back in a pile.

I remember my back and legs aching, so I can see the attraction of being able to sit while ringing up items. But I seem to recall in London that cashiers were standing in the grocery and drugstores. I guess some countries are sitters and some not?

I don't think cashiers here in the states have any say as to whether or not they should sit, or stand. A chair is not provided....so they stand. It does seem rather silly. However, an employee can be fired for any reason here (well, at least in Texas), so, that may account for why employees don't make waves, so to speak. It wouldn't make any difference to me if they were seated, and I really don't think sitting would hinder productivity. If anything, I think it would make them a little more pleasant. Having lived in Europe for 16 years, I do feel that employees in Europe are generally treated better than employees in the US. I know that we had several ladies that worked for us is different offices that were citizens of Germany, Italy, England, etc., and we had to adhere to the rules regarding employment in each country. Breaks were taken at certain times, as well as lunch. They were also allowed alcoholic beverages at lunch. They were also paid much more than US employees doing the same job.

All of that being said, I would be happy if cashiers in certain large chain stores here in the US could speak properly, and ring up a 10 item sale without having to do a price check on every 3rd item. And a smile or a greeting would be nice as well. Unfortunately, that's asking a lot. I avoid those stores whenever possible. Sometimes, I feel like my business is an annoyance to them.

Good question - at the Paris Monoprix where we bought food items, we bagged our own. So standing to bag more efficiently didn't enter into the equation.

<i>All of that being said, I would be happy if cashiers in certain large chain stores here in the US could speak properly, and ring up a 10 item sale without having to do a price check on every 3rd item.</i>

One encounters the same thing in most grocery stores in Europe. It is the nature of the beast. The job stinks, chair or not, so you won't get the best and the brightest. Throw on top of that the sheer number of items that need to be priced and tracked, and I would think we basically get the service we should expect.

Wow, flanneruk, I'd like to see your European supermarkets. Every European supermarket I've been to has had a checkout line slower than molasses (and I've been to a lot, since we stock up on Coca Light and local cookies for our nightly snacks). Now then, it was probably more a function of the number of lines (we generally have more cashier lanes and more cashiers working than in the European cities, as space in European cities is at a premium) than the standing/sitting or actual efficiency of the cashier. However, even with the chairs, I've found 80%+ of European supermarket cashiers to be dour and surly -- far higher than the U.S.

Wegman's is awesome.

somehow i think that if american cashiers sat and europeans stood, the argument would be reversed and the europhiles would say that the americans are so fat and lazy that they can't even stand up to do their jobs.

kind of like in past threads where a million reasons are stated why it's better NOT to have your groceries bagged for you. sometimes fodors' is very strange.

flanner is just winding you up. british stores have some of the worst service in the world....and we know it.

my favourite feature of our service style is the shelve stockers who completely ignore the fact that there are shoppers in their midst. their tasks come first and they don't bother to get out of the way of the customer. welcome to britain. we also pervert all performance measures that we try to set up. they typically have nothing to do with the customer. anyone in business here understands this failing. flanner go uk, go uk understands this too. he's just winding you up.

At Aldi or Lidl, you have to struggle to get your stuff off the belt. It's so fast, I've got to take one arm and swipe everything back into the cart. It is a little stressful, because at the same time you have to hand the money. You don't want to intervene into the constant flow of the belt, do you?

It's a feeling of total efficiency :D

<i>british stores have some of the worst service in the world....and we know it.</i>

The wife and I were commenting on the sorry state of British supermarkets this past weekend. We went into a Waitrose to grab a snack and water and were not overly impressed with what fancies itself as a higher-end supermarket. They had some downright scary looking sushi. Later, we met up with some friends, and they were talking about heading (out of their way) to Whole Foods to stock up for dinner. I thought of Flanner.

Funny, but I'm always thinking of a scene from the Chaplin movie &quot;modern times&quot; when I shop there.
Well it's cheap :D

I have a pathological hatred of the self-service tills - I've worked hard all day, therefore I don't want to do someone else's job when I get to the supermarket (yes, I know, bah humbug!). I'm paying you, Tesco, so you can bloody well scan my groceries for me.

(BTW I don't mind packing my own stuff as I can a) make sure it's done properly and b) it's more efficient than one person trying to scan and pack at the same time.

The self-service tills have been an unmitigated disaster at our local supermarket, with huge queues snaking back miles whilst some poor sod tries to find 'sundried tomatoes' on the loose goods menu, while everyone else rolls their eyes, looks at their watch and sighs repeatedly. Extra staff are required to help people scan the barcodes on magazines (they never work), sort out payment disputes, and swoop down on 13-year olds trying to buy 'Strongbow' or 'Diamond White'. Why don't you just open a checkout for chrissake?

Maybe we also need seats for the queuing customers.